I remember admiring Stokes's phlegmatic, almost Zen-like calm as he phones Julia at Collinwood and asks her to come quickly. I might have just killed a man! he tells her. While he's waiting, he gives Tony an emetic so that he throws up the poison--luckily for us, while the opening credits are rolling. And luckily for Tony, it's the right emetic.
Julia tells Stokes that the young man is Tony Peterson, her lawyer! Stokes replies, He told me his name was Arthur Hailey. (Arthur Hailey was a real author who wrote doorstop-size, popcorn-reading novels with one-word titles, such as Hotel and Airport, each depicting some big organization and the people involved in it. If that's some kind of in-joke we'll never know!)
Julia is surprised at the extent of Stokes's knowledge of the past, but he surprises her even more when he brings out Ben's famous memoir, which he has preserved (quite properly) by mounting the individual leaves in a new book. (We actually get a glimpse of a page with the words "Mr. Barnabas.") Sitting at his desk, Stokes observes, Ben was illiterate and [as we already know] didn't even learn to write until he was past forty. According to Ben’s account, the first Barnabas Collins somehow changed from a forward-thinking young man to some kind of maniac--but that crucial chapter is missing from Ben's memoir. Julia’s face is a study in apprehension, then relief, as she stands behind Stokes as he turns the pages.
Stokes is already in his colorful-bow-tie phase, which lasts for the rest of the show. The DS Wiki photos for this ep. show him wearing a powder-blue one, with a matching pocket hankie--but I always thought they weren't supposed to match. Can any of the guys here enlighten me?
Ben helps guide Stoke's hand into filling in some of the missing details. It's nice to think of Ben reaching out from the beyond to help defeat Angelique as best he can--but still without giving away Mr. Barnabas's dreadful secret.
Tony staggers out of the back room, full of remorse, but Stokes brushes off the murder attempt, possibly because he didn't find it nearly as intellectually challenging as messing up Cassangelique's dream curse.
Poor Roger is trying to teach his bride to play chess--he's playing white, she's playing blood red. Maybe it's just the brandy talking, but Roger observes very astutely, I have the feeling you’re just marking time with me--that you’re actually waiting for something to happen somewhere else.
Cassangelique's black wig looks pretty good in this episode. She packs Roger off to bed--alone. The least she could do is put a spell on him to make him think that the marriage has been consummated. That would actually be the smart thing to do, because he'd be lulled into a false sense of marital bliss and wouldn't pester her (from her point of view). But as usual, Angelique doesn't take the long view.
Tony may be dull, but Trask never is.
